


The Memories of Stone

by raiyana



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst and Feels, Celebrimbor/narvi is canon, Echoes of the Past, Eregion, making Gimli look at an elf and go 'huh?'...'hmmm...'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28593888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiyana/pseuds/raiyana
Summary: The passage of the Fellowship through Eregion is a short one in the book - and yet one of the strangest in some ways, revealing that Legolas can hear what the once-built stones say of their masters, something that’s never touched on afterwards... Perhaps he merely meant the place held that certain hushed sense of liminal space you find in ancient ruins.But what if... what if?What do stones remember of what once was?
Comments: 25
Kudos: 62





	The Memories of Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [red_lasbelin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_lasbelin/gifts).



> This fic was born of a conversation between myself and Red, which tested our reading comprehension to its utmost.... and although we failed, this little thing was born.  
> Enjoy!

Stone carried memories, something Legolas had known from his earliest days. He had been small then, and quite content to follow workmen around as they shaped vast columns and carved out rooms meant for their people to live in.

Not many dwarf craftspeople had visited the Halls at a time – Ada was picky, demanding the best of the best, of course – and Legolas had taken full advantage of his youth to explore their willingness to tell him stories they’d never have told an adult elf.

And the stone columns still remembered the rough hands that had smoothed them into being, carrying an echo of a working song that felt _old_ like the bones of a mountain.

A song that seemed to steal a few notes here or there from Ada’s favourite musicians, weaving those songs into a new whole for those few ears that could hear them. He had asked only once, why he could hear them, but the Dwarf had not known, and had looked at him strangely until he left once more.

Ada had been more helpful, claiming it a gift from the witch-queen of Menegroth that lingered in some folk of her kenning. Legolas had got no clear answer as to whether Thranduil could hear the song, and he had not asked again; Ada’s eyes turned too sad with the memory of his first home.

Looking over the tumbled rocks, scattered like a giant’s playthings, Legolas shivered. This, too, had been an Elvenhome, once.

Once, and no more, and only ghosts left lingering in the air among the ruins.

“There are no ghosts here, lad,” the dwarf rumbled, that glimmer in his eyes enough to make Legolas only too aware that the moniker was a mockery not a fondness. “Only broken stone – you look too scared for an elf beneath the free sky!”

Legolas bared his teeth, hissing lightly though the dwarf pushed past him as though he had not heard, axe slung over his shoulder. He had the audacity to whistle a tavern tune.

“There might be lingering spirits,” Gandalf interjected. “Elves may choose not to move on from their deaths.”

“It should sadden me if such were the case,” Gimli replied, suddenly sober. “For old Narvi’s sake, at least.”

“Narvi?” Legolas asked, the name somehow familiar though he couldn’t place it.

“Narvi!” Gimli exclaimed, echoing a different voice that made the name far more joyful than incredulous.

_Narvi, come see!_

“Narvi was among the greatest of our craftspeople!” Gimli continued hotly. “Her hands shaped much of the stone you will see in Balin’s realm.”

 _Pretty work, dear heart_. A different voice, carrying that odd accent that only the oldest of Noldor voices held, and Legolas stiffened, glancing uneasily at the stone he had been leaning on. Carefully moving his hand away from the smoothed grey rock, he shivered.

The stone at home carried no voices, not in this manner.

“Hers was the dark fate to love an Elf,” Gimli added, looking sombre, “and of their parting by the powers many great tales have been sung among my kindred.”

“I thought that was only rumour and hearsay?” Gandalf muttered to his staff, but Gimli bristled as though he had shouted.

 _They are lost and long gone_. _Only we remain, remembering._

Neither voice he had heard before, yet so plaintive and sad that Legolas felt grey with it. _No more reaching for the heights, no more freedom granted by beautiful hands_.

“Stone’s truth!” Gimli swore, glaring at Legolas as though he was the one offering protest. “Even if _Elves_ don’t like thinking of one of their with one of ours – and Khalebrimbur was more dwarf by heart besides.”

“I believe you, Gimli Glóinsson,” Legolas heard himself say, listening to the ghost of an airy laugh in the breeze. “I hear the stones lament them… though the trees and the grass have forgotten. The stones remember.”

“ _You_ can hear _stone_?”

At any other moment, Legolas would have had some quip ready, wishing to wipe the incredulous look off that annoying dwarf’s face and pretend he had been in jest.

But he simply nodded, trailing the tips of his fingers across another boulder.

 _Beautiful, beloved._ The voice was awed, admiring, and Legolas could feel the tenderness radiating from the stone beneath his hand. He could almost see it, set as the central stone that held the whole ceiling of the room together, a large iron and silver chandelier crowned with tens of pale candles hanging from it. The stone soaked up the warmth, candles and voices both, and its lamp – no trace left but the memory of light, now – shone brightly upon a head of dark and a head of gold. They were bent over the work, drawing together and apart, lines and spellwork and plans for something greater than either of them had dreamed before.

 _Me or the doors?_ The other one laughed, pleased by the compliment and the light from a candle moved across the now-cracked slab that had once been a workspace, had once held so many dreams and desires, had been carted from deep within the Mountains, carved and tooled until it was utterly perfect to the eyes of its master.

 _I was a gift brought from the depths for the one who was loved_.

“Deep they delved us,” Legolas said, but the words were not his, and his eyes did not see the faces of his companions. “Fair they wrought us,” they had been, he thought, picturing the green stone entwined with the pink one so seamlessly no eye knew they had not grown together “high they builded us… they are gone.” Shaking his head, he rose, wondering when he had knelt upon the green grass, and let a small remnant of stone fall from his fist. “They are gone.”

_Gone and lost forever._

_They are gone._

The voices were silent. And so was Gimli, whose expression reminded Legolas of the old dwarf who had failed to tell him how he could hear the memory of a stone. Legolas walked on, standing beneath a weathered broken archway; this room had been _theirs_ once, and they lingered in each crack even as the stones that once held them had scattered, shattered by an angry fist.

 _Write it like that – you’re a clever one!_ A laugh filled him, the joy of a joke well played, and joined by another, richer in tone and timbre. _A trickster, you are. And I love that._

The stone remembered, wistful as it tried to continue to fill its purpose, holding up walls that did not stand, crumbling further with every season. For a moment, Legolas let his palm rest against the column beside him, letting his ears be filled with the sounds of forgotten fondness and joy.

And then his hand fell to hang loosely at his side, and he stepped away from the shadow of the reaching arch, breaking the spell between them until only the echoes of the stone remained.

 _They are gone_.

 _They are gone long ago_.

_And lost._


End file.
